Bringing Down the Empire: Challenging the Institutions of DominationPublished: March 14, 2012Check out The People's Book Project by Andrew Gavin Marshall. This new book currently being written is a heavily researched initiative to present a new understanding of the world, focusing specifically on historical, political, social, and economic power structures. The aim is to understand the ideas, institutions, and individuals which have come to be dominant over humanity, and thus, how humanity can free itself from the chains that bind it to its present state. Learn more and support this inspiring new idea.

“Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” – Victor Hugo

We have come to the point in the history of our species where an increasing amount of people are asking questions, seeking answers, taking action, and waking up to the realities of our world, to the systems, ideas, institutions and individuals who have dominated, oppressed, controlled, and ensnared humanity in their grip of absolute control. As the resistance to these ideas, institutions, and individuals grows and continues toward taking action – locally, nationally, regionally, and globally – it is now more important than ever for the discussion and understanding of our system to grow in accord. Action must be taken, and is being taken, but information must inform action. Without a more comprehensive, global and expansive understanding of our world, those who resist this system will become increasingly divided, more easily co-opted, and have their efforts often undermined.

So now we must ask the questions: What is the nature of our society? How did we get here? Who brought us to this point? Where are we headed? When will we get to that point? Why is humanity in this place? And what can we do to change the future and the present? These are no small questions, and while they do not have simple answers, the answers can be sought, all the same. If we truly seek change, not simply for ourselves as individuals, not merely for our specific nations, but for the whole of humanity and the entire course of human history, these questions must be asked, and the answers must be pursued.

So, what is the nature of our society?

Our society is one dominated not simply by individuals, not merely by institutions, but more than anything else, by ideas. These three focal points are of course inter-related and interdependent. After all, it is individuals who come up with ideas which are then institutionalized. As a result, over time, the ‘institutionalization of ideas’ affect the wider society in which they exist, by producing a specific discourse, by professionalizing those who apply the ideas to society, by implanting them so firmly in the social reality that they often long outlive the individuals who created them in the first place. In time, the ideas and institutions take on a life of their own, they become concerned with expanding the power of the institutions, largely through the propagation and justification of the ideas which legitimate the institution’s existence. Ultimately, the institution becomes a growing, slow-moving, corrosive behemoth, seeking self-preservation through repression of dissent, narrowing of the discourse, and control over humanity. This is true for the ideas and institutions, whether media, financial, corporate, governmental, philanthropic, educational, political, social, psychological and spiritual. Often the idea which founds an institution may be benevolent, altruistic and humane, but, over time, the institution itself takes control of the idea, makes it rigid and hesitant to reform, and so even the most benevolent idea can become corrupted, corrosive, and oppressive to humanity. This process of the institutionalization of ideas has led to the rise of empires, the growth of wars, the oppression of entire populations, and the control and domination of humanity.

How did we get here?

The process has been a long one. It is, to put it simply, the history of all humanity. In the last 500 years, however, we can identify more concrete and emergent themes, ideas, institutions, individuals and processes which brought us to our current place. Among these are the development of the nation-state, capitalism, and the financial system of banking and central banking. Concurrently with this process, we saw the emergence of racism, slavery, and the transformation of class politics into racial politics. The ideas of ‘social control’ came to define and lay the groundwork for a multitude of institutions which have emerged as dominant forces in our society. Managing the poor and institutionalizing racism are among the most effective means of social control over the past 500 years. The emergence of national education systems played an important part in creating a collective identity and consciousness for the benefit of the state. The slow and steady progression of psychiatry led to the domination of the human mind, and with that, the application of psychology in methods of social engineering and social control.

Though it was in the 19th century that revolutionary ideas and new philosophies of resistance emerged in response to the increasing wealth and domination at the top, and the increasing repression and exploitation of the rest. In reaction to this development, elites sought out new forms of social control. Educational institutions facilitated the rise of a new intellectual elite, which, in turn, redefined the concept of democracy to be an elite-guided structure, defined and controlled by that very same intellectual elite. This led to the development of new concepts of propaganda and power. This elite created the major philanthropic foundations which came to act as “engines of social engineering,” taking a dominant role in the shaping of a global society and world order over the 20th century. Ruthless imperialism was very much a part of this process. By no means new to the modern world, empire and war is almost as old as human social organization. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rapid imperial expansion led to the domination of almost the entire world by the Western powers. As the Europeans took control of Africa, the United States took control of the Caribbean, with Woodrow Wilson’s brutal occupations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.